


we glide, we spin

by cafecliche



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Heartbreaker Katsuki Yuuri, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, a whole truckload of fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-11-19 03:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 11,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11304783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafecliche/pseuds/cafecliche
Summary: A collection of Tumblr fics and headcanons, including: world travel, Pride and Prejudice retellings, the Summer of Mutual Pining, and the unintentional but devastating powers of Katsuki Yuuri's beauty.





	1. askbox request: Victor's depression

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request from @gimmebackmybrain on Tumblr, who asked for a fic about Victor's depression. This owes a whole lot to @winchilsea's nail polish headcanon: http://winchilsea.tumblr.com/post/156237240252/in-any-other-universe-i-would-consider-it-a-gender

“I don’t…” Yuuri pauses, worrying at his lip between his teeth, and shifts the unfamiliar bag higher in his lap so he can better dig through it. “I don’t have the steadiest hands,” he says. “So you’ll have to hold still.”

He says it like they’re already in the middle of this conversation, like he’s not totally aware he hasn’t said anything out loud since he leveled Victor with that long, studying glance over the couch and told him to _come here_. He hasn’t noticed that Victor’s not following yet. That’s okay. Victor is more than capable of catching up.

It takes Yuuri setting out the cuticle kit and one, two, three bottles of nail polish for them to get there.

Victor blinks. “Did you buy these?” 

“Found them in your closet.” Yuuri glances up through his lashes, still bent over his task. “I can put them back?”

By way of answer, Victor slides in, accordions their legs, and offers his hand.

Yuuri takes it, inspects the size and shape of Victor’s nails like he’s dismantling a bomb. It’s that look he got at Euros, right before the free skate. Focused. Present.

(A reporter, misreading him, asked if Yuuri was worried about Victor’s comeback. Yuuri barely paused, shifted Victor’s skate guard, water, and tissue holder in his arms, and softly said, “I’m just trying not to drop anything.” 

Victor was on the ice at the time, but Chris sent him the link the second it was posted to YouTube. Chris is a good friend.)

When Yuuri gets that look now, it usually means he’s going to dig through the spare room, or take a different route through their neighborhood. Victor trails after, sometimes. But there’s still plenty he looks past.

“Hey.” Yuuri’s mouth twitches upwards as he eases the clippers past the leather. “No moving.”

“Your hands aren’t unsteady,” Victor says.

“They shake, sometimes,” Yuuri says. “I told you about that press conference before my senior debut. Everyone thought I hadn’t eaten. People were giving me their granola bars.”

“That wasn’t about your hands,” Victor declares, and holds firm when Yuuri glances up at him through narrowed eyes. People look for excuses to give Yuuri things. That’s objective fact.

“Are you going to hold still or not,” Yuuri says.

It shouldn’t be possible to hold still with a flourish. But Victor is very talented.

Yuuri takes his time with the cuticle cream. Victor’s noticed that Yuuri likes this kind of repetitive motion, from his compulsory figures to the circles he wears in the carpet when he can’t sleep. It should be impossible to forget that Yuuri lives with him now, and yet Victor regularly wakes up at 2:30 in the morning, alone in bed, and listens to the faint rustling in the living room, wondering if he’s being robbed.

Even without Yuuri next to him, there are enough little differences to tell now from then: the things on his shelves, the texts on his phone, the looks on the faces around him. They’re getting fewer and further between, now, those moments where he catches something out of the corner of the eye and, briefly, forgets what year it is.

“Now. These are carefully-selected options,” Yuuri says, a little arch, as he nudges the three bottles of polish with his toe.

“I would expect nothing else,” Victor says.

“Might be a tough choice,” Yuuri says, looking up from the cuticle cream just long enough to grin. “Option #1—” a nudge to the bottle for indication, “coordinates with your short program costume, where Option #2—” another nudge, “is a perfect match for your free skate. So it depends on where you want the most impa—oh.”

He’s stopped, fully focused on Victor now, and his mouth slants a little. “Option #3, then.”

It’s firm, like they’re in agreement, and Victor finds himself, once again, trying to catch up. He doesn’t think he made a face. He doesn’t think his face looked like much of anything. And yet.

“What does that one match?” is what Victor finally asks.

“Me?” Yuuri stays on task, even as his cheeks pink. “I. Um. Wear a lot of this color.”

Victor’s shoulders uncoil. Weird. He doesn’t quite remember tensing them. “Perfect.”

Yuuri shifts the first hand closer with a decisive nod, carefully dabs the excess polish on the sides of the bottle, and starts on the first thumbnail with slow, deliberate strokes. He’s visibly struggling to keep the color even. Victor wants to tell him that’s what the second coat is for, but it seems rude to break his concentration now.

“You’re allowed to talk, you know,” Yuuri says.

“You did tell me to stay still,” Victor says.

Yuuri’s mouth shifts into a smirk. “Most people manage to talk without their hands.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Victor says, mock-scandalized. But when Yuuri’s face settles back into something serious, he prods. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Well…” Yuuri trails off long enough, starting on the next nail, that Victor’s started to think he forget they were talking. But eventually, he finishes, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but – you could talk about whatever it is that’s on your mind?”

Victor’s jaw barely stays closed.

“Everything’s fine,” he huffs out.

“Okay,” Yuuri says, and his narrowed eyes say everything he doesn’t.

It would be nice, Victor thinks, if he could be quite as succinct. Almost as nice as if there were words at all for the someone’s-walked-over-my-grave feeling of coming back from the rink in the dark of midwinter, the streetlights blazing clear against the sharp cold air like they always have and always will.

Besides. He knows the exact contortions of Yuuri’s thinking by now.  No one but Yuuri could be so sure of his insignificance to others and his complete and total responsibility for everything wrong in their lives at the exact same time.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” is what he settles on eventually.

Yuuri’s hand twitches, splashing the next stroke of polish across the side of Victor’s finger. With an I-told-you-so sigh, Yuuri swipes it away with the edge of his own nail. He pauses for a second, as if considering whether or not to put the bottle aside. But he keeps going.

“Victor,” he says. “Do you remember our first competition? Someone from the press asked what you would say to those who felt I’d never be a serious contender unless I got my nerves under control, and you said—”

“That anyone who underestimated you would come to regret it,” Victor says.

“I was _so mad_.” Yuuri laughs softly. “I could just see it. I was going to fail, _really_ fail, and that clip was going to go viral, and you’d go back to Russia and I’d be a meme.”

“I remember that.” Despite himself, Victor smiles. “You said all of that out loud, actually.”

“Right,” Yuuri says. “And then I thought about it afterwards. And I realized it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me.”

His words hang there, fragile. They’re both looking up now. “So?” Victor says.

“So,” Yuuri says. “Don’t start underestimating me now.”

Oh.

Victor’s exhale punches out of him as he sprawls deeper into the floor, his arms around Yuuri’s waist. From somewhere above him, Yuuri says, “You’re not going to let me finish, are you.”

“It looks perfect,” Victor says.

“You have a nail and a half painted.” Fingers comb through Victor’s hair.

“I’ll start a fashion,” Victor says.

“Low-maintenance.” Yuuri’s smile is audible. “I like it.”

They’re quiet long enough that when Victor speaks again, it could easily be unconnected. A random, fleeting thought. “I read this theory once that a personality isn’t a constant over time. That it’s a set of external circumstances internalized.”

“… why were you reading that?” Yuuri asks. Victor still can’t see his face.

“My physical therapist was behind and it was on the table.” Victor shrugs the best he can from his current position.

“Okay. Well.” Victor can feel the rise and fall of Yuuri’s ribs. He’s chewing something over. “If that’s true. _If_. Then we’re both people we’ve never been before, right?”

“Both?” Victor says.

“Sure,” Yuuri says. “I’ve never been here before. And – and you’ve never been here with me before.”

He can’t put his finger on it. But something, undeniably, clicks.

Victor presses his face into Yuuri’s side and, distantly, realizes there will never be a better opportunity to joke about reusing all his best pickup lines. He doesn’t take it.

They finish his nails the next night.  


	2. ask meme: 'things you said'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the 'things you said' ask meme: http://cafecliche.tumblr.com/post/159986721779/prompts-1-things-you-said-at-1-am-2-things

  
**13) things you said at the kitchen table**  
  
“There’s only one problem with this.”

Yuuri bites back the urge to snap at the love of his life and takes a deep, calming breath. Victor is entitled to his opinion. Even if it is a categorically incorrect opinion about the Best Anniversary Present Ever To Be Given, their new kotatsu. Which Victor himself bought, so if there’s a problem, it’s too late now.

Instead, he rolls over to face Victor and raises two questioning eyebrows. They’re sprawled under the kotatsu’s heated blanket, having abandoned the remnants of their protein shake monstrosity at the far end of the table. 

(Tastespotting calls it the Green Machine. There is absolutely nothing pleasurable about drinking it, but it ensures nobody worries about the other’s protein intake. It’s mutually assured destruction at its finest.)

“Well,” Victor says. His eyes flicker, contemplatively, to the early morning light streaming in through the windows. “We were supposed to be at the rink 15 minutes ago.”

Yuuri considers that for a long moment. He extracts an arm from under the blanket, and the chill of the apartment sends goosebumps rippling up his skin. Then, without sitting up, he reaches for his phone on the table. 

He is not even close to reaching it. But after he misses once, twice, three times, Victor tosses a distinctly unimpressed look over his shoulder and retrieves it for him. It’s the most romantic thing Victor has done for him since at least 7pm last night.

“What?” Victor asks, as Yuuri makes a beeline for the Notes app.

“I’m writing our joint retirement press release,” Yuuri says. “Think of something nice to say to your fans."

Victor, with only the slightest pause, nods solemnly. “They’ll understand.”

  
**14)things you said after you kissed me**  
  
“You’re serious?”

Victor doesn’t actually give him a chance to answer before he dives back in. That’s okay. Yuuri can wait.

” _Yes_ ,“ he laughs once his mouth is free - Victor has moved on to kissing his jaw instead. “Let’s not go. Let’s just not go.”

The naked relief on Victor’s face is very briefly visible before he tackles Yuuri with such force, they almost topple backwards to the floor.

Yuuri staggers backwards to keep them both upright, dizzy with a mix of guilt and the kind of terrified exhilaration that must come with cliff diving, or deciding to commit a very justified murder. How many times had they dragged themselves to sponsor function after sponsor function when the whole time it was as simple as _not going_?

Victor lets go of Yuuri’s waist just long enough to dive for his phone. “I’ll text Yakov now.”

“No wait, stop, stop, stop.” Yuuri stills Victor’s hands with his own. “It should come from me.” Yakov wouldn’t think to question it, coming from Yuuri. Which is apparently his mistake. Oh no. He’s going to feel really guilty about this later. “I’ll text him. You take that suit off.”

“Good,” Victor breathes. “I hate this suit.” Actually, it’s a really nice suit, but right now, Victor looks like he’d happily burn it in effigy.

The tie is halfway over Victor’s head before he thinks to ask, “What are you going to say?”

Yuuri shrugs, even as he opens the text message field. He’s been successfully dodging social invitations for at least eighteen years now. He’ll think of something.  
  
  
 **53) things you said in the dark**  
  
If Yuuri had the strength for math right now, he might have known that their October 18th had lasted for 36 hours. At the moment, all he knows was that it started in a Tokyo hotel, continued on a Keisei Skyliner to Narita and then on through four hours of flight delays, through a late connecting flight in Vancouver and a late arrival in Chicago, through a rebooked flight to New York for tomorrow morning, and an overcomplicated search for a hotel.

They’re minutes away from making it out of October 18th alive, having made it to the only place Yuuri’s wanted to be since this morning: in a bed. Holding up his hand to the dim city light streaming through the windows, he can see a fine, exhausted tremble running through his fingers. And yet.

“It’s lunchtime in Tokyo,” Victor murmurs. And oh god. At least he said it first.

Yuuri groans and rolls over until his face is buried in Victor’s shoulder. "It’s not fair.“ He’s aware that the words are barely coherent, smushed into Victor’s clavicle, but he left his sense of shame and decorum back in Vancouver. "I’m so hungry.”

Victor’s arm shifts until he comes to rest around him, and he’s quiet long enough that Yuuri wonders if he fell asleep. He’s breathtakingly jealous, but also genuinely happy for him, which is how he knows this is true love.

Then suddenly, Victor says, “So.” When Yuuri blearily raises his head, Victor is staring down at his phone. “Remember how you said you never wanted to look at today’s clothes again?”

“… yes?” he says slowly. Their suitcases are still in Customs until tomorrow’s flight, so at least until they land in New York, he’s stuck with today’s clothes. But at least for the five hours before they have to leave for the airport again, he planned to pretend they didn’t exist.

“Well.” Stretching as he moves, Victor extracts himself from the bed, but he leaves behind one outstretched hand to Yuuri. “If you can put up with them another half hour, there’s a 24-hour diner two blocks away.”

Yuuri casts a short, baleful stare towards the pile of sweats on the other bed, but he twines their fingers and lets himself be pulled to his feet. There’s a lot he’d put up with for pancakes right now.

(There’s even more he’d put up with for Victor. But that was already a given.)


	3. that devastatingly beautiful skater from Japan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kevystel:
> 
> hi i need approximately 3k words of content about yuuri being famous in the figure skating community for years as ‘that devastatingly beautiful skater from japan’ and having no idea

1.  
Yuuri Katsuki of Japan smiles exactly once at Skate America: when he’s on the podium, collecting his bronze. It’s a small, dubious flick of his lips, like someone’s just complimented his outfit and he’s trying to decide whether or not they’re mocking him. 

He spends the rest of the competition looking downcast, shoulders knitted together, biting his lip. Two commentators spend at least three minutes of airtime worrying that he’s been bullied.

“Entitlement,” diagnoses Commentator #3. Endemic among millennials, really. Dozens of competitors would kill to be in his skates, so can’t he at least pretend to be happy about it?

There’s a retaliatory #YuuriGanba hashtag campaign, and a number of viewer complaints. Commentator #3’s vendetta against Yuuri Katsuki of Japan lasts through the short program, and through the free skate. It lasts right through to the gala, when Phichit Chulanont of Thailand slides up behind Yuuri and whispers something in his ear. Yuuri barks out a laugh, and as if startled by the force of it, claps a hand over his mouth. He looks over at Phichit, eyes bright, face red, and shoves him once, lightly.

A long exhale is picked up on Commentator #3’s mic, and #1 and #2 audibly brace for his reaction. What’s broadcast instead is a soft, sighed, “Wow.”

2. 

“It’s as if I’m your dealer.” Chris hands over the bag of pork rinds, punctuating the gesture with a full-body shudder. Yuuri had _asked_ for chips, but pork rinds have the exact same fat content, plus seven grams of protein. At least they’re not _empty_ calories.

Chris hates that he knows this now. He hates that Yuuri Katsuki has forced his knowledge upon him. But every relationship is defined by a single moment. Theirs was that one day in Juniors when Chris asked, ‘Aw, pumpkin, what do you need?’ and Yuuri whispered back ‘A cheeseburger.’

Yuuri takes the fluorescent yellow bag with a quiet “Thank you” and tugs the plastic open. “You don’t have to keep me company.”  
  
Chris slides back into the fake leather of the chair and takes out his phone. They’ve situated themselves in the hotel lobby, a little removed from the crush of public practice. But everyone here is a skater, or a reporter, or a fan. 

Everyone comes to a dead halt, at least once, to watch the famously beautiful skater from Japan tip a bag of pig skin down his throat. 

Someone from NHK trips over his own feet. Chris gets it on video.  
  
“Yuuri,” he says, fondly. “It’s really my pleasure.”  
  
3.  
  
It’s been a long time since a triple was the talking point of Victor Nikiforov’s performance. But the flawlessly-executed triple axel is undoubtedly the beating heart of Victor’s new short program, debuted at Europeans. The instant replay blasted throughout the stadium is paired with a single reaction shot: Yuuri, eyes never leaving the rink, grabbing Yakov Feltsman’s arm with both hands.

“Oh, Yuuri,” Mila chirps that night at dinner. “You’re trending!” There’s a unanimous solemn nod around the table.

“… I’m not competing?” Yuuri says. 

Nobody seems to find this weird.

4. 

“Please,” the young man says, holding out the paper to Celestino with shaking hands. They’re still in the venue parking lot. Celestino hasn’t even locked his car. This is a new record. “I don’t want to make it weird, I just– please tell him he inspires me!”

The kid breaks into a run, leaving Celestino holding a surprisingly realistic charcoal drawing of Yuuri, folded into a textbook layback Ina Bauer.

“This is pretty good!” Celestino calls to the kid’s retreating back. The response can only be described as a tortured sound of longing.

5. 

Victor goes back to his hotel room and googles 'Yuuri Katsuki.’ The resulting internet spiral lasts several hours.

The first several results are what you’d expect: profiles, past programs, YouTube videos, though there’s no real social media to speak of. The seventh result is a forum post titled “GPF Day 1 Yuuri Katsuki looking beautiful drinking Gatorade???????”

He clicks. The post text is simply, _please did anyone else see it I’m dying_  
_  
_ Victor scrolls down for context. The top voted response is simply _I gotchu_ , with a winking emoji and an embedded Vine.

He clicks. And then he lets it loop. He lets it loop approximately ten more times.

There are, somehow, fifteen more pages to this thread. Victor is going to read all of them.

Bonus: 

Yuuri performs in Moscow for the first time at age 19. It’s not his best competition, but he has an unusually good practice beforehand, so good that a few of the cameras stay trained on him most of the time. 

“Beautiful!” someone calls out to him - maybe the cameraperson.

He looks up, startled, then smiles. “Thank you,” he says, in his accented Russian.

Miles away, watching TV slouched in his grandfather’s chair, Yuri Plisetsky sits straight up. 


	4. headcanons: in which Yuuri Katsuki is tougher than everyone else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #I feel like knowing Yuuri is wanting to protect him #and knowing him REALLY well is knowing he is made of concrete and steel girders #please give me 8000 words of Yuuri after a face-bruising crying jag #applying concealer with ruthless efficiency #while all in attendance realize they are in the presence of a stone cold badass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because sometimes a girl needs to answer her own tags.

1.

Yuuri’s first REALLY SPECTACULAR FALL in front of Victor happens about a week after Onsen on Ice, while running through Eros. He always thought that when it finally happened, he’d maybe dig a nice hole to die in, but in the moment he’s too preoccupied by how goddamn funny it would have been if he’d brained himself while trying to best showcase his ass. 

He spends about a full minute lying on his back on the ice and just _laughing_ while Victor hovers awkwardly over him with this look like he’s still watching the season flash before his eyes, and to make it worse, the only thing Yuuri manages to gasp out is “Did I seduce you yet?“ 

Yuuri’s going to learn eventually: in that department, he can’t lose.

2.

(Yuri Plisetsky, on the other hand, has seen Katsuki fall dozens more times than Victor has: on TV, on YouTube, occasionally in person. Watching someone fuck up doesn’t hold much interest for him. But it kind of grabs his attention, how seamlessly Katsuki gets back up. Or whatever.)  
  
3.

Yuuri puts himself back together in that carpark in Beijing with Victor’s phone and Victor’s press conference touch-up kit. Victor, meanwhile, watches Yuuri study his own face in the selfie camera and hands over the requested makeup with the solemnity of a trauma nurse.

"Can I have the eye cream,” Yuuri asks softly.

“Right here.” Victor pauses halfway to giving it to him. “Yuuri, I’m–”

“Talk later,” Yuuri says, not unkindly. “Eye cream now.”

4.

Detroit Skating Club students and alumni still talk about that day a few years back when a distracted pair skater accidentally rammed into a 20-year-old Yuuri during practice. Not because anyone was badly hurt. Mostly because shy little Yuuri Katsuki looked up from matter-of-factly staunching the gash on his leg, watched the pair skater howl that his ankle was broken (it was not), and executed the most flawless eye-roll that those present had ever seen.

Yuuri claims not to remember this at all, but Phichit will never forget.  
  
5.

Phichit feels so much safer going to new places with Yuuri, because Yuuri just snags Phichit’s arm and flat-out breezes by anyone who tries to harass them. This is actually just Yuuri’s general instinct to get out of any public place as quickly as possible, but it’s comforting nonetheless.

6.

Yuuri’s meltdown at Four Continents makes Beijing look like a mild case of the jitters. It comes at the tail end of a nonstop few weeks of Europeans and short program redesigns and conflicting schedules, and Victor’s already halfway to panicking himself just trying to calm him down. This, naturally, is when JJ swoops in.

“I can help,” JJ announces. “I’ve been practicing mindfulness.”  
  
It’s unclear how much of the English language Yuuri is actually grasping at the moment, but he loses some of that dazed, hunted stare, and when he looks up at Victor over JJ’s shoulder, he looks calmer and present and about 1000% incredulous.

_What_ , he mouths. Victor lets out the breath he’s been holding. 

7.

(Somehow, despite evidence to the contrary, Victor spends a significant amount of that first year of theirs together wondering which of his own jagged edges will be the dealbreaker for Yuuri. When Yuuri finds out that Victor would rank even the worst he has to offer alongside even the mildest of inconveniences, Yuuri gently, firmly, corrects him.)


	5. ask meme: summaries of fics I'll never write

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the meme: 'send me a title/pairing and I'll give you the summary of a fic I'll never write.'

**mountliang asked: phichit + seunggil; wow, sarcasm, that's original**  
  
This one is the loosest Pride and Prejudice retelling ever. Phichit doesn’t find Seunggil intimidating. Seunggil doesn’t find Phichit charming. These two simple facts shake the two of them to their very core. It drives Phichit to _new and increasingly more charming heights_ just to try to win Seunggil over.   
  
Just to drive the knife in, Seunggil responds to every one of Phichit’s jokes with a straight face and a flat, dead “That’s funny.”  
  
Phichit spends a lot of time at Four Continents facedown in the duvet in Yuuri and Victor’s hotel room. “I’m hilarious,” he keens.  
  
“You are!” Yuuri says, rubbing circles into Phichit’s back. Victor just kind of hovers to the side holding the bottle of champagne he was about to pop and surreptitiously trying to rebutton his shirt.  
  
(Seunggil does not have anyone to rant to, nor is that his way. But he does practice his most intimidating faces in the mirror and raise a quizzical eyebrow at his reflection.)  
  
They’re into each other, of course. But this is a P&P retelling, so there’s a disastrous love confession at Worlds in which Seunggil manages to insult both Phichit and the ‘company he keeps.’ Phichit tells him in no uncertain terms that being aloof and condescending doesn’t make him cool and mysterious, it makes him a dick.  
  
A long offseason passes, and when the Grand Prix Series assignments are announced, Phichit’s pretty relieved that he won’t see Seunggil for any of it. But as the season progresses, Phichit hears more and more stories from his friends. Seunggil finding Georgi’s young cousin when she gets lost at the NHK Trophy. Seunggil helping Chris block the IP addresses of some particularly persistent trolls. Seunggil noticing that Yuuri was an unholy mess at Rostelecom and showing him literal dozens of pictures of his dog.   
  
But the moment that seals it for Phichit is when he finds out, courtesy of Seunggil’s family at the GPF, that Seunggil has found him hilarious for months, it’s just that he’s one of those people who says “That’s funny” instead of actually laughing.  
  
Neither of them make the podium that year, but they do make out furiously under the stadium seating, so really, everyone’s a winner.  
  
  
 **Anonymous asked: victor/yuuri - i'm the lock and you're the key (won't you come and open me)**

This is definitely a college AU. Brilliant and lonely student body president Victor, attending his housemate’s party, gets his mind blown by a beautiful drunk boy, because some things are a constant. Victor does the gentlemanly thing and takes Yuuri’s car keys, then crashes on the couch while Yuuri takes the bed. Victor wakes up early, ready to get Yuuri’s number over a nice greasy hangover breakfast… but Yuuri, sans car keys, is already gone.

Yuuri’s car is still in the driveway. Victor, as student body president, could send out an email to the student listserv. But where’s the fun in that? Instead, he retraces Yuuri’s steps at the party and ends up piecing together a Rashomon story of who Yuuri is, because everyone’s got a different idea. He is either an intense and intimidating student athlete, or Phichit’s beautiful friend who never talks, or that dude with the big Bambi eyes who regularly cries silently into his custom sub at Jimmy Johns, or all of these things.

Finally, hours later, Victor knocks on a door, and a pale and puffy Yuuri Katsuki opens it. Half of his hair is stuck to his face and half is sticking up. He’s gorgeous.

“Oh my god,” says Yuuri, who has been in love with Victor since his big election speech last year.

Victor smiles nervously and jingles Yuuri’s keys. “Hi,” he says. “Can I take you to breakfast?”

“… it’s 4pm?” Yuuri says. Victor nods, not really understanding his meaning.

They exchange numbers over Denny’s.


	6. headcanons: Yuuri learning to act natural around Victor

Today’s YoI thing I want to think of instead of work: That Summer They Fell Absurdly in Love and Yuuri finally getting comfortable enough to act natural around Victor:

\- Within a few weeks their mornings regularly start with Victor pulling Yuuri out of bed by his feet while he softly keens “Noooooo”

\- When they’re at the beach, Victor gets knocked on his ass by the biggest wave either of them have ever seen. Once it’s clear the only thing injured is his hairstyle, Yuuri laughs so hard he’s openly sobbing

\- Yuuri gets serious about onsen ping pong with Victor to the extent that all the ojisans are like go easy! Let him have one! Don’t you feel sorry for him?

\- The night after Regionals Victor walks Yuuri back to his hotel room. They’ve got an early train. But they just kind of. Hover. Outside the door. For a long time.

Victor sort of skims his fingers across the edge of Yuuri’s cheek and says, “You’re going to have a black eye for your press conference.”

Yuuri, who is several hours beyond too tired to self-censor, mumbles, “Good, I’ll intimidate the competition,” and Victor’s heartbeat kind of stutters.


	7. a softer world prompts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the askbox meme 'give me a Softer World prompt and a pairing': http://cafecliche.tumblr.com/post/162068148964/50-a-softer-world-prompts

**[15\. No no, we aren’t breaking up! You didn’t let me finish. I’m gay for YOU. (And I’m queer for math!)](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=868)**  
  
_(set between episodes 4 and 5)_  
  
“I’m sorry, Yuuri. I can’t be your coach today.”  
  
It occurs to Victor, just a few seconds too late, that this is not the kind of joke Yuuri would find funny. Or recognize as a joke, for that matter. But unlike April Yuuri, who would have gone wide-eyed and ashen, Mid-July Yuuri straightens from his layback Ina Bauer and blinks, unfazed.  
  
“What’s the clipboard for, then?” he says, and his mouth twitches a little. So maybe he finds it a little funny.  
  
With a flourish, Victor flips the clipboard, showing off his approximation of a scorecard with a wide sweep of his arm. “I’m going to mock-score your run-through today! What should my judge persona be, Yuuri? Am I tough but fair? Am I a traditionalist disgusted by the quad race figure skating has become? Do I have a tendency towards overscoring Russians? Though I wonder if that would work for or against you…”  
  
Yuuri’s full-on smiling now. Victor thought, for a time, that he’d catalogued and filed each of Yuuri’s smiles - it’s only recently that he’s captured this one, unencumbered by shyness or nerves. Every time he sees it he leans a little further forward.  
  
“Just be you?” Yuuri says. “But as a judge.”  
  
Victor swallows. “Conflict of interest,” he says.  
  
“Have some faith in Judge Victor,” Yuuri says. It might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said.  
  
The problem presents itself as Yuuri pulls his right leg into one last deep hamstring stretch and adds, “Besides, I’ll need the brutal honesty.”  
  
Victor stares. 404 error. Please reboot. “Sorry?”  
  
Yuuri pushes backward and drifts. He rarely stops moving, once he gets on the ice. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” he says. Rueful. Accepting. “I don’t know where to start.”  
  
“… oh,” says Victor, as Yuuri settles into his starting pose, like someone unaware that he finished yesterday’s practice with a run so strong and stunning that Victor nearly killed both of them with a joyous impromptu lift.  
  
Victor cues the music and straightens the clipboard, his pen hovering over the scorecard. He wonders, briefly, if he should score Yuuri as Yuuri. Maybe that would help him understand. He can guess at Yuuri’s thoughts well enough now. When a laugh bubbles up through Yuuri as he tosses his head and smirks, Yuuri wouldn’t see a skater feeling the performance, the joy of seduction, down to his toes. He’d see someone breaking character. Embarrassing himself. An inauspicious start to his PCS.  
  
Victor’s not sure how much faith he has in Judge Victor. But in this instance, he has even less in Judge Yuuri.  
  
When the run-through ends and Victor has time to calculate, Yuuri squints at the number. Whether he can’t see it or can’t process it is anyone’s guess.  
  
“Are you sure?” he says.  
  
Victor has rarely been so sure.  
  


[**2\. At my worst, I worry you’ll realize you deserve better.  At my best, I worry you won’t. (I’ve never been better.)**](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asofterworld.com%2Findex.php%3Fid%3D1086&t=NDUyMjYwYTBjMDdmYTU0MTI0MmFiOTc4MThiYzMzZWM3MzBiYjZjNSxwbE5qc3diSw%3D%3D&b=t%3A4lC-jcYsea2UWIc-Xbx_BQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fcafecliche.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162068148964%2F50-a-softer-world-prompts&m=1)  
  
_(post-canon)_  
  
He doesn’t panic. So there’s that. 

He just doesn’t understand it, either. Sometimes a sentence is so hopelessly misaligned with reality that the words don’t fit together.

Sentences like,  _You realize it’s you who deserves better._

Yuuri untangles himself from the sheet and turns over, on the off-chance that he was still half-asleep. But Victor is looking at him seriously, sincerely, like Yuuri didn’t spend most of last night pacing in circles around the bed and half-seriously trying to convince Victor to coach Minami-kun.  
  
(“Not my style, I think,” Victor had said.

“He’s a fast learner?” Yuuri said. “Low-maintenance? Or at least, he’s not going to make a scene?”

“This is what bothers me,” Victor sighed. “You keep referring to some ‘scene’ you’re going to make, but where is it? Where is Katsuki Yuuri’s diva phase? I want to see it.”  
  
“You know that’s not what I-”

But Victor had, happily, barged on, well past the point where Yuuri was facedown in a pillow and laughing too hard to breathe. “When I was sixteen, a sponsor I disliked touched my shoulder and I refused to wear the costume again. When I was seventeen, I told Yakov I would no longer drink water that wasn’t Evian. Do you think I could taste the difference, Yuuri? Because let me assure you, I could not.”)

Anyway. He expected, maybe, they’d talk about it. Using different words. But that’s Victor. Always surprising him.  
  
“… what?” Yuuri blinks. Squints. Maybe that was Russian, just now. Something in Russian that coincidentally sounded like a very specific English sentence. 

“I think you heard me,” Victor says. He sounds very firm for someone who looks very terrified.

“I mean…” Yuuri sits up. He feels like he should probably have this conversation sitting up. “Do you _want_ me to-”

“No,” Victor says quickly. “God, no.”

“Okay. Well. Good,” Yuuri says. That neatly cauterizes that panic attack at its core, at least. “Then why.”

There isn’t a good action verb he can think of. _Why would you say that_ and _Why would you think that_ and _Why is that a concept that exists in nature_ all feel a bit - confrontational.

“It just-” Victor makes a vague, frustrated gesture. “Didn’t seem fair. For me to keep that to myself.”

Yuuri stares. Considers that for a moment. Then twists around turns their alarm off.

“We,” he sighs, collapsing against his pillow, “are going in late.”

“… I don’t follow,” Victor says.

_Well,_ Yuuri thinks, taking Victor’s face in both hands. _Now you know how that feels, then_.

“I think I told you,” he says. “That I could search the whole world. You remember that?” He waits a beat for Victor’s full attention. 

He gets it. “I do.”

“Good.” Yuuri runs a thumb across the side of Victor’s jaw. “Then let’s see if I can make myself clearer this time.”


	8. summaries of fics I'll never write, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few more from the 'send me a title/pairing and I'll give you a summary of a fic I'll never write' askbox meme! 
> 
> Mild emetophobia warning for a brief, non-graphic reference to vomiting.

**y3daner asked: Hot Mess, Viktuuri  
  
** This is another entry from the Summer of Excruciating Mutual Pining. You know that trope where two people are messy and imperfect around each other for the first time and it only makes them crush even harder and that’s how they know they have it bad? I love that trope. This is That Trope: The Fic, but for both of them.  
  
\- The Katsukis take Victor out for teppanyaki. Victor, who was up all night thinking through choreography, takes a big bite out of a chunk of prepared-but-raw chicken, thinking it’s a grape. Miraculously, his stomach processes this.  
  
\- Victor arrives in the height of pollen season. He swallows a spoonful of wasabi to clear out his congestion. What happens next will not surprise you.  
  
\- About a month into training, Yuuri stops pretending that he’s someone who’s above attempting to get an extra ten minutes of sleep in the locker room every morning. This is who he is, okay. He’s not going to hide it anymore.  
  
\- Victor knows that he’s bad at karaoke, but he leans into it. He cues up the [one Japanese song he knows](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DC35DrtPlUbc&t=ODAyOGU3M2Q1M2QzZjIxN2MwZDI3N2FiMTFmYjU0ODI5MmIyM2I3ZCxUbkY2c3hTNg%3D%3D&b=t%3A4lC-jcYsea2UWIc-Xbx_BQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fcafecliche.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162411859919%2Fhot-mess-viktuuri&m=1) and he goes _full ham_. When Yuuri politely tries to suppress his giggles, Victor waits just enough time for Maximum Comedic Effect… and then loads the same song again. Yuuri hears the music cue and proceeds to laugh so hard he hiccups for a good half hour.  
  
\- Victor babbles in Russian for half the walk home. Yuuri knows a little Russian, actually, but it’s easier to understand when you’re not trying to keep several dozen kilos of drunk figure skating superstar on his feet.  
  
“English?” Yuuri asks, not sure he’s going to get anywhere with that. But Victor takes him by the shoulders, and the set of his mouth goes somber.  
  
“I want to make you happy,” he says. It’s the clearest thing he’s said in hours. “Tell me how to make you happy.”  
  
It stops Yuuri short for a moment. Then Victor stumbles and hip-checks a trash can and Yuuri has to go back to the task at hand.  
  
\- “You don’t have to stay with me” is what Yuuri tries to say, though he’s not sure how much is clear with his face pressed against the bathroom tiles. He’s on Hour 3 of what is either Norovirus or demonic possession. It’s possible he lost a few organs while his stomach attempted to turn itself inside-out just now. He’s going to miss them.  
  
“Do you want me to go?” Victor says.  
  
Yuuri very carefully rolls over. Victor is hovering above him, holding a Gatorade in one hand and a washcloth in the other. He looks completely out of his depth.   
  
“Please don’t,” Yuuri says.  
  
Victor doesn’t.  
  
  
 **Anonymous asked: (Victor/Yuuri) Black Sheep**  
  
This one is the Nikiforov Family Drama fic. I haven’t settled on a headcanon for that clan yet, so for the purposes of this fic, Victor and Yuuri are attending a function with a branch of Victor’s family with about two dozen advanced degrees between them.  
  
Yuuri goes from characteristically anxious re: making a good impression to 800% livid as a line of Victor’s relatives ignore Victor’s achievements to ask Yuuri about the possibility of graduate work in his future, once he’s tired of his ice hobby. And isn’t Yuuri so impressive for putting aside such distractions for his undergraduate degree, Vitya? Didn’t we tell you over and over that it was possible?  
  
(And then the worst part is that Victor is clearly not happy, but also very clearly not surprised.)  
  
Yuuri, obviously, cannot let this stand. He downs roughly five glasses of wine for courage, interrupts one of Victor’s uncles, and says, “Vitya, I’ve been thinking about my base score for the free skate.”  
  
Victor kind of. Glances around. “Now?”  
  
“’S bothering me,” Yuuri confirms. “If I moved the triple loop and the quad Sal to the second half, what would my base score be?”  
  
Victor frowns, because that’s… inadvisable… but dutifully calculates it on the spot.  
  
“And if I made the triple loop a triple-double combination?” Yuuri says. “And swapped the quad flip for a… quad axel, yeah.”  
  
Victor, officially concerned, is like, “Sweetheart, did someone say something to you? Because–”  
  
“Just hypothetically.” And this is the point where Yuuri smiles sweetly and bats his lovely eyelashes and Victor finally notices the looks they’re getting.  
  
“Oh,” he says, with a dangerous smile. “Of course. Hypothetically.”  
  
(They go back and forth like that for about twenty minutes, until Yuuri tugs his genius fiancé to the coat closet for the remainder of the party.)


	9. in which Yuuri's reality eclipses his daydreams

I am thinking happy thoughts about all of Yuuri’s most self-indulgent Victor daydreams coming true.

I mean. Self-indulgent to _Yuuri_ , anyway. Accepting comfort in practice is something that makes his skin crawl, like he’s even smaller and weaker and more helpless than he thought. But in theory, it sounds kind of. Nice? Like maybe it would be okay, in some contexts.  
  
Like if someone - not Victor Nikiforov, that would be ridiculous, but for the purposes of this exercise that’s the mental image he’s going to use - but someone. (Let’s just _call_ him Victor Nikiforov, for simplicity’s sake.)  Like if on those nights when Yuuri’s on the couch without the wherewithal to cook, Victor Nikiforov could suggest takeout. Or if during particularly long and overwhelming events Victor Nikiforov could make some excuse for them to go home.   
  
Or, (and this one is _really_ embarrassing), if those times Yuuri had to slink, on his own, to campus health, just to make sure those little training injuries weren’t going to turn into something serious - what if Victor Nikiforov held his hand and told him he’d be fine, and that he could take some time and rest and he’d catch up. That’d be wild, right.   
  
And then fast-forward six years to a clinic waiting room in St. Petersburg while Yuuri waits to get a sprain checked out, and Victor has an arm locked around his shoulders and a look on his face like they’re in a period drama and he’s ready to offer his own hand for Yuuri to bite against the unimaginable pain, and Yuuri just. Has a mild but lengthy out of body experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #he's not even going to start with yurio #who is to his right having a lengthy argument with the triage desk #he is not ready to deal with that yet


	10. missed connections

I love the idea of Victor and Yuuri criss-crossing in and out of each other’s competitive lives over the years without full awareness of it.  
  
From Yuuri’s perspective he’s totally aware? He’s got the full catalogue of Victor Nikiforov Encounters etched into his brain forever and he’s at peace with the fact that he never seems to make much of an impression, because every time he’s unmemorable is another chance to get it right.  
  
Yuuri’s always going to know that the first time they ever really spoke was right before Skate America in his second Senior season, when he looked so terrified and unsteady during press that Victor pushed a water bottle into his hands, and invited him to step outside and get some air, and then was kind enough to look concerned when Yuuri stammered out some excuse and straight-up bolted. It’s comforting to know that Victor doesn’t remember that. Yuuri’s happy not to be remembered until he’s worth remembering.  
  
(Victor, meanwhile, does idly think about that sweet, terrified looking kid for a few hours - one of the Juniors, maybe? Hopefully he got where he was going okay. He does take note of Katsuki Yuuri from Japan, Chris’s friend, the fourth place finisher with an underwhelming free skate and a devastatingly delicate exhibition - such a strong dancer, that much is clear, wonder what happened. And wandering the halls of the hotel, killing time until his 4am flight, he sees someone else awake, too: a boy circling the lobby on his phone, with a cute accent and a laugh that lights him up.  
  
He doesn’t connect them as the same person. He’s not really paying enough attention for that, these days. But it doesn’t change the fact that he notices.)


	11. in which Victor's reality eclipses his daydreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So since Yuuri had his turn, now it’s time for All of Victor’s Fondest Year-of-Pining Daydreams vs. Reality: The Fic.

1\.   
  
Yuuri’s shirt is already half-unbuttoned when his eyes go blank. His body jerks with a sudden shiver, the color washing from his face. To his right, the pole, an anniversary gift from Christophe, gleams.

“… Baby?” Victor says. He attempts to sit up and tear his eyes away from the exposed slip of his fiancé’s collarbone. He’s roughly half-successful.

“It’s nothing,” Yuuri says. “Don’t worry about it.” But at Victor’s soft, insistent noise, he mumbles, “It’s going to ruin the mood.”

Victor crosses the room to take his hands. “Try me.”

Yuuri stands straighter, like he needs to gather his strength. “Sometimes I just.” He pauses. Victor leans in. “… remember all over again that JJ Leroy has seen me do a striptease.”

“… ohh,” Victor says. And he does see what Yuuri means now. His entire body just went cold. 

Yuuri clears his throat and gives the pole a tug. “Do you want me to just teach you some tricks on this.”

“That would be good,” Victor says.

2\.   
  
“Yuuri. _Yuuri_ , it’s fine.” Victor laughs, holding his forehead with one hand and tugging at Yuuri’s arms with the other. “Are you okay?”

“I am so sorry,” Yuuri keens, burying his face deeper in his hands. “Did I hurt you?”

“Of course not,” Victor says. Yuuri smashed their heads together with such force, there’s a good chance he’s forgotten entire years of his childhood. It’s fine.

Yuuri spreads his fingers just wide enough to look at him. “You’re sure?”

Victor pats Yuuri’s thigh, in the general area of his near-fatal good morning kiss. “Let’s just call it a learning experience?” His head throbs. It’s going to bruise. That’s fine, too. “For me, mostly?”

Yuuri groans and buries his face in the pillow.

3\.   
  
“No sex in the onsen, Victor.”

“But what if—”

“ _No_.”

3.5

“ _Victor_ —”

“I know, I know. No sex in the onsen.” Victor reaches underwater to gently grip Yuuri’s ankles. “But there are other ways I could make you feel good.”

Victor can see the very moment Yuuri’s resolve wavers. “I’m listening.”

He slides his hands up Yuuri’s legs until they come to rest on his quads. “You must be sore,” he murmurs, looking up through his lashes. “I could do something about that.”

Yuuri hums as Victor kisses the underside of his jaw. “You could,” he agrees.

He digs his thumbs into the tight, overworked muscles, laughing when Yuuri groans. “Let me?” he says.

“Mmm,” Yuuri hums through his smile. He slots closer to Victor, lowering his voice. “Is anything stopping you?” 

***

“So anyway, yeah,” Mari drawls. “This would be why we tell people to be careful of anything that might cause a…” Her smile twitches, but she holds it in check. “Sudden change in blood pressure.”

Yuuri slides the cold compress far enough down his face (still flushed deep red from his face-first crash into the water) that it blocks all eye contact with anyone. Would that Victor were so lucky. He stares, determinedly, at the copy of _Sports Illustrated_ he’s using to fan Yuuri. His own face winks back from the cover.

“It could be worse, Victor.” Mari nudges him with her elbow. “Imagine if, for example, you’d lived at a hot springs resort your entire life? Wow. How embarrassing would that be?”

“Kill me,” Yuuri hisses when Mari’s back is turned.

Victor pats helplessly at his leg.

4.

_Phichit: YUURI_

_Phichit: YUU RI_

_Phichit: I am sending you a very important Twitter thread_

_from a fan trying to get JJ’s autograph who instead overheard his entire strangers-in-a-bar roleplay with Isabella_

_please read and send your thoughts ASAP_

_Phichit: he spent a full half hour just explaining to her how ISU scoring works Yuuri h e l p m e_

Yuuri skims Phichit’s texts. Then immediately scoots over on the couch to show Victor.

Victor squints. “I still don’t understand why you send each other these things.”

“You know how when some people taste something that’s gone bad, the first thing they do is get someone else to try it?” Yuuri says. At Victor’s nod, he adds, “Celestino used to say that impulse was 80% of our friendship.”

Victor nods vaguely as Yuuri opens the link. He still doesn’t get it, but he understands.

As Yuuri scrolls through the thread, Victor watches him, cautiously. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we did that?” he says, almost casual.

“Did what?” Yuuri says, without looking.

Victor almost loses his nerve. Maybe that’s why, rather than explaining, he merely gestures to the screen and repeats, “That.”

Yuuri does look then, though he doesn’t answer right away. He chews his lip for a long moment instead.

“We… _could_ ,” he says slowly. Victor leans forward, ready to dismiss it as a joke, but Yuuri speaks first. “But who would be JJ and who would be the JJ Girl?”

Yuuri keeps that wide-eyed straight face for an admirably long, excruciating moment. Then he throws his head back and _cackles_.

“I’m sorry,” he wheezes, scrambling to the other end of the couch when Victor makes a grab at him. “I’m sorry, I knew what you meant, I’m sorry—”

“First of all.” Victor lunges. Yuuri jumps up off the couch and out of his reach. “That is the last time you invoke JJ Leroy in our sex life.”

“ _Let me show you my JJ Style_ ,” Yuuri manages to croon, seconds before Victor tackles him to the floor.

5.

“Yuuri.”

“Wha—” Yuuri jerks towards him, his eyes wide and unseeing. Victor’s fairly sure he’s not fully awake. “What’s happening. What’s wrong.”

Victor pulls back. The time is carved in harsh green light over Yuuri’s shoulder: 3:01am. He regrets this already. Yuuri should be asleep. They both should.

Victor’s tired, too. Tired enough to ask, anyway.

“Are you—” He starts, course-corrects. “Do you like it here? Do you miss home?”

Yuuri’s eyes narrow. His nose crinkles. He glances around the room, Victor’s St. Petersburg bedroom that he has not yet looked totally comfortable calling his own. And he frowns.

“We’re home now?” he mumbles.

Victor’s breath catches.

“… oh,” he manages, eventually. “So we are.”

“Okay.” Yuuri sighs happily and buries his face under Victor’s neck. Within seconds, he’s fully asleep again.

Victor takes a long time to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ending is very much a shoutout to @kevystel, who kills me with emotion on a daily basis


	12. the summer of mutual pining: assorted ficlets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts based on the period between episodes 4 and 5, aka 'The Summer of Mutual Pining.'

 

 

**Anonymous asked: um. victor lets something Really Personal slip during the Summer of Excruciating Mutual Pining. yuuri wants nothing more than to pull him into his arms and make him feel loved, loved, loved**

 

Yuuri’s still mortified that the first time he actually did something about it, it was about food.

It has, for some time now, become increasingly likely that when Victor’s joking, he’s probably, mostly not. ‘It’s so funny to have someone to talk to after practice! Besides you, Makkachin!’ ‘Roommates? You know me, I’d be impossible, ha ha!’ And every time Yuuri doesn’t say something, he always wonders if it was the right call.

The last straw comes when they visit the local izakaya together. It’s a tourist town, so there’s an English menu, and Victor is just _utterly charmed_ by all the choices. “Two pages, Yuuri! Just for the fried things! Amazing!”

Yuuri smiles into his straw. “You must get to try a lot of food.” When Victor’s face goes briefly blank, Yuuri adds, “Traveling?”

“–oh!” His smile comes back quick, the one Yuuri has learned to recognize as bright and shiny and empty. “Well, you know. You order what they tell you you can order, right?”

Yuuri does not actually make the conscious decision not to let this stand. The next thing he knows, he’s placing their order.

He’s placing enough of their order for at least five people.

“Um,” he says, as they’re left alone again. Victor’s eyes are wide. “Most of that isn’t on my diet plan. But it’s good. You should eat it.”

Victor blinks. His smile comes back, slow and a little crooked. “You’d really abandon me with all this delicious food, Yuuri?”

Yuuri’s not always good at picking up on an invitation. But this one is all he needs.

***

**pearlo asked: Re: summer of mutual pining, my very favorite is thinking about their beach days. (And also poor Victor completely not used to the heat compared to St Petersburg summers.)**  
  
Victor was definitely not prepared for the summer. He’s definitely been to Tokyo, and most likely Sapporo, but he probably hasn’t been as far south as Kyushu, and I doubt he was prepared for how summers in Japan can get.  
  
\- There is, by Victor’s calculation, a daily average of at least 1000% humidity. He never knew that his hair could floof that much. The literal only reason his humidity hair does not have its own Instagram tag is because Yuuri made the triplets promise not to post it.  
  
\- Though he got much more careful later, he kicked off the summer with a horrific sunburn. “You’re so white,” Yuuri somehow manages not to say as he carefully applies aloe vera.  
  
\- “Are parasols in fashion here?” Victor asks as a group of college-age women walk by.  
  
“I guess,” Yuuri says. There’s a beat. “Did you want one?”  
  
(Victor really wants one.)  
  
\- There’s a two week period where Victor conducts an informal poll throughout the town of Hasetsu, asking everyone how they stay cool. Top answers include: spicy food, scary stories, watermelon, and storing your pajamas in the freezer. He tries everything, to mixed results.  
  
\- The Katsukis take him to buy his first yukata, which Yuuri wraps him into with the focus of a brain surgeon. Victor holds onto the feeling of his fingers sliding under the folds of fabric and brushing against his shoulders.  
  
\- They spend a lot of time on porches, under overhangs, waiting for rain to pass. “I think it’ll be over soon,” Yuuri says. Victor is in no hurry.

***

 **Anonymous asked: totally missed your summer of mutual pining request yesterday but i was just curious what moment is there when viktor realizes how content just being surrounded by yuuri makes him feel? like he's just so warm and wondering how he's been breathing all his life without this newfound thing in this heart (it's simultaneously calming and exhilarating) and he's approximately an inch away from falling completely in love with this man  
**

Sometimes Yuuri’s overthinking just shorts out. Critical Anxiety Failure: Please Reboot. And in those moments he just grabs what he wants, without thinking. He touches your hair. He dances with a sparkler in each hand. He says something without passing it through the multiple quality filters in his head, even if he looks horrified a second later.  
  
Victor hears, from more than one person, that Yuuri was never someone who sought out touch. To care about him was to hold yourself at safe distance, close enough to be there but far enough away that he wouldn’t run.

Yuuri’s trajectory was incremental enough to escape notice, unless you were someone who made a study of Yuuri Katsuki. Eventually, often enough to be a pattern, he sits close enough to Victor to bump shoulders, or brush legs, to lean a little if he’s tired enough - to have an escape route but still feel that pressure. And Victor just kind of sits there in a mix of ‘!!!!!!’ and ‘please don’t let me breathe wrong’ and ‘whatever I did right I need to do it every day,’ even reconciling himself to the fact that the second someone walks in, the spell is going to be broken.  
  
And the first day someone walks in and Yuuri doesn’t flinch away, or even notice anyone watching them? It’s like the best hard fall he’s ever had **.**


	13. the summer of mutual pining: 5+1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For @mixedbird, who brainstormed this fic with me. 5 hilariously transparent excuses to touch each other, +1 they didn’t try to excuse.

1.  
  
Yuuri Katsuki wakes up much the same as he wakes up every morning lately: on his feet, in motion, with firm hands on his shoulders and the vague knowledge that he’s been upright and moving for at least the past few minutes.  
  
“Mmm,” he offers in token protest.  
  
“Yes, yes,” laughs Victor, steering him around a corner.

He squints. His glasses are on, but the world’s still bleary. “Where?” he asks, without deciding whether or not he means ‘where am I’ or ‘where are we going.’  
  
“Breakfast! And don’t make that face,” Victor adds when Yuuri cranes his neck to squint in his direction.  
  
“‘s just my face,” he mumbles, to a rumble of soft laughter.  
  
Yuuri faces front again. It’s mostly a formality - his feet are moving, but the momentum is all Victor. He could close his eyes and move where he’s told and trust that he’s not going to fall.   
  
There are, however, other reasons to watch where he’s going.  
  
“Victor,” he says.  
  
“Hmm?” Victor says, indulgent.  
  
Yuuri points down the stairwell they’ve just passed. “Dining room.”   
  
With a long, thoughtful noise, Victor steers him in a wide U-turn and loops back to the stairs.  
  
2\.   
  
Sometimes their mutual language doesn’t adequately encompass what their bodies need to do. Today is one of those days.  
  
Yuuri sees the frustration building in the set of Victor’s mouth from the beginning. Not at Yuuri, most likely - at himself, or at the words that don’t fit neatly around the posture he’s trying to describe - but it scratches at the pit of his stomach nonetheless.   
  
_I can make this easier,_ he thinks, as always. _I’ll think of something. Don’t leave yet_.  
  
Whether he senses this or not, he smiles, in any case. “I’m not describing this very well,” he says, apologetic. “Can I just show you?”

Yuuri nods, and Victor folds into the pose in one fluid motion. The relief is evident on his face. It helps to speak a language that understands you back.

He holds impressively still as Yuuri circles him, though it won’t be long before he starts to get tired. It would be inconsiderate to hold back. At least, that’s what Yuuri tells himself as he sets propriety aside and moves closer.

“Can I…?” he asks, hands hovering.

Victor makes a small sound of assent, and then a quieter, less-readable sound when Yuuri’s fingers trace the line of his shoulders, the creases of his back. He tries to think about understanding the position, mimicking it. He tries not to think about laying his palms flat and holding them still, until he can feel Victor’s heartbeat.

He can see Victor’s ribs expand and release with his breaths, and he times his own breaths quietly, carefully, like a naturalist in an unfamiliar ecosystem. Unbelievable. Who would have ever thought he’d be close enough to Victor to watch him breathe.

“Thank you.” He jerks back, as if from a stove. “That helps.”

“Oh.” Victor looks almost winded. “Anytime.”

3.

“Can I…?” Fingertips ghost over the top of his head.

Yuuri starts to nod. Then remembers all at once what a bad idea that is.

He’s on his stomach, his face pressed into his pillow, eyes closed. The lights are already off, and the shades are already drawn, but it’s the kind of tension headache where one wrong jolt of the universe is going to make him feel sicker. The fewer stimuli, the better.

Victor’s touch goes from barely there to a firm press, starting where his jaw meets his ears – _it’s where all my headaches start,_ he explains, barely a whisper – and moving down and through his scalp. The tightness builds as Victor reaches the base of his skull, and when he finds the knot where Yuuri’s left shoulder meets his neck, he murmurs, “There we are.”

It hurts enough, in that first moment, that Yuuri almost tells him to leave it alone, but the pressure in his head is lessening, even as Victor digs into the unbearably tight muscle. It’s pain, but it’s the kind of pain he knows to trust.

Victor finishes with the heel of his palm, a warm, solid pressure. He murmurs something in Russian – something like, “How do you do this to yourself.”

It’s the sort of thing Yuuri would apologize for, otherwise. But he’s so relaxed, he’s practically boneless. His sense of shame might as well be offline.

He laughs softly. “Even I don’t know.”

Victor’s hand stills. “I want to,” he says.

It’s the kind of conversation they have, sometimes. The kind where Yuuri doesn’t realize until very late that their conversation is broader than he knows, even if he doesn’t understand how.

“Okay,” he says. He hopes that’s the right answer.

4.

Yuuri jerks awake and swings an arm at his pillow. It’s such deep, ingrained muscle memory at this point, it’s a full second before he knows why he did it.

His palm makes contact with Victor’s shoulder. Victor’s shoulder, which is currently his pillow. He pats it lightly in case he hit too hard.

“Our stop,” he slurs.

Victor hauls him from the train bench and to his feet, laughing. “I have no idea how you do that every time,” he says.

Yuuri blinks himself awake as they move out to the platform, the light rail sliding into the night behind them. It’s fully dark now, the stars boring holes through the hazy black.

“Reflex,” he says, with a sleepy smile. “Besides, I don’t trust you anymore.”

“Yuuri!” Victor clutches at his heart. “Just once I missed our stop, and you’re still holding it against me? I was still new to the area!”

“That, I understand.” Yuuri tries to look stern. He just ends up laughing. “I just can’t believe you didn’t notice sooner. I woke up and they were shutting the lights off.”

“They could have been clearer about taking the train out of service,” Victor grumbles. “And I was—“ His cheeks pink. “…distracted.”

Yuuri, descending the platform to the sidewalk below, misses the implication.

5.

Victor trips, and for the third time that evening, Yuuri can vividly imagine the headlines. _Victor Nikiforov, figure skating visionary and Russian national treasure, broke his neck in Hasetsu today while coaching some nobody from Japan. He will be missed_.

But for the third time, Yuuri catches him.

“Yuuri!” Victor gasps. He’s so drunk. So, so drunk. “You saved me!”

Yuuri himself is just tipsy enough that the usual buzz of his thoughts feels further away. His head is clear, surprisingly quiet. It’s—nice.

“What is going _on_ with you,” Yuuri grunts, setting Victor back on his feet. “Did you really have that much to drink?”

“Yes,” Victor says proudly. And after a moment’s thought, he adds, “And these sandals hurt.”

Yuuri glances down at the geta, perfectly coordinated with Victor’s silver and green yukata, and stammers, “They—Victor! Have they been bothering you all night?”

Victor leans in conspiratorially. “I’ve never liked shoes with the—” He makes a vague gesture. “—thing between the toes.”

Yuuri gapes. They’ve been at the festival for hours, and Victor didn’t say a thing. “You didn’t have to wear them!”

“But Yuuri,” Victor says mournfully. “Nothing else matched. And I thought they were supposed to be hard to move in.”

With a flat stare, Yuuri twirls once, then folds into the lowest backbend he can, balancing perfectly on his own geta.

“Show-off,” he thinks he hears Victor mutter.

“Anyway,” Yuuri says. “Take them off.”

Victor blinks. “My shoes?”

Yuuri takes Victor’s face in both his hands. It’s important that Victor understand this. Also, it’s possible that Yuuri is a little drunker than he thought. “I’ll carry you.”

“Yuuuuuri,” Victor giggles. “It’s not far.”

“You’ll hurt yourself. You’ve got your bad ankle.” At the blank look on Victor’s face, Yuuri feels heat prickling at his face. He’s definitely drunker than he thought. “That is—your right ankle—you sprained it the summer after your senior debut. And then again in 2013?”

Something in Victor’s face softens. His hands come to rest over Yuuri’s. “You _are_ my fan, aren’t you,” he says quietly.

Yuuri moves to shrink back. Victor holds on tighter.

“I’m happy,” he says. “I’m your fan, too.”

Yuuri takes a slow, steadying breath.  “And do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Victor breathes out. And then, for emphasis, he repeats it, twice.

Sliding his hands out of Victor’s grip, he turns and drops to one knee. His thighs are going to be in agony tomorrow. It’s for a worthy cause.

“Then get on,” he says.

(If, by some miracle, time travel was invented in that moment, Yuuri would go back and tell his teenage self that it would be okay. That one day, he’d give Victor Nikiforov a piggyback ride through the streets of Hasetsu as he yelped things like “Yuuri!” and “Amazing!” and “You’re so strong!”

His younger self would laugh in his face. But it would be worth a shot.)

+1

Yuuri Katsuki goes to buy groceries much the same way he goes to buy groceries every weekend lately: with Victor’s hands on his shoulders, steering him through his own hometown.

“Oh, Nomura-san!” Victor calls to the little old woman with the Bichon Frise. “Ohayo gozaimasu!”

As Nomura-san waves them off, Victor steers Yuuri down a side street, determination in his voice. “Okay, Yuuri,” he says. “I think I know the way this time. Probably.”

Yuuri smiles over his shoulder. He’s not worried about it. He’s more than happy to see where Victor takes him.


	14. summaries of fics I'll never write: HGTV AU

**la-belle-et-la-bete asked:**

**are you still doing fic outlines, if so: All But The Kitchen Sink, Viktuuri**

 

Oh my god. Yuri on Ice: HGTV AU.  
  
\- “I’m a figure skater,” Victor says.  
  
“I’m… also a figure skater?” Yuuri says.  
  
“And our budget is 2 million!”  
  
\- (”Wait,” Yuuri says. “Really?”  
  
Victor rubs Yuuri’s arm. “Our last ice show did _very_ well.”)  
  
\- Neither of them are helpful.   
  
-The least bit helpful.  
  
\- “Anywhere I can be with Yuuri is home,” Victor keeps sighing.   
  
“Okay but how many bathrooms,” the hosts keep replying.  
  
\- Victor honestly believes that, but also he’ll casually drop statements like “we’re really in the market for eight bedrooms minimum” or “if you can’t fit a California king inside it is it really a walk-in closet.”  
  
\- (He’s trolling, mostly, but he does want to make sure they have enough bedrooms for their eventual hockey team of children.)  
  
\- For the first several houses, Yuuri’s response to everything is to wring his hands and say “It looks nice.” Finally, after all-out begging from the producers, Yuuri gives actual opinions and it turns out they are BLISTERINGLY SAVAGE.

\- The camera crew stalks him from that moment on, zooming in on his beautiful thoughtful face, waiting for him to quietly eviscerate another McMansion.  
  
\- They are the first couple in the history of the show who do _not_ want a double vanity. “Why?” ask the hosts. There’s a smash-cut to these clingy octopus monsters brushing their teeth while wrapped around each other.  
  
\- Victor pretends to be torn about their eventual house. He knows how reality TV works. He pretends the lack of apron sink in the kitchen is going to be a dealbreaker.  
  
\- And then their faces upon entering the master suite and seeing the hot tub become an extremely popular reaction gif.   
  
\- “ _I need it_ ,” Yuuri hisses. Victor cries a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The most popular tweet in the show’s hashtag that week is definitely something like “this #HouseHunters couple is having better sex than I will ever know”
> 
> And the replies are all like “here from the figure skating fandom and #confirmed.
> 
> (no offense tho I’m sure you’re great)“


	15. headcanons: Yuuri's anxiety

Yuuri’s a little unnerved by the waves of calm that hit him sometimes these days.

Which: figures, that his brain can turn even this into cause for overthinking. But when you’ve built most of your life on adrenaline, both good and bad, the absence of it is like missing a stair in the dark. Like some fundamental change in your biology.

(Though then he realizes this unease is coming from the same impulse he’s weirdly worried that he’s lost, and he feels both a little better and a lot frustrated with himself. Yuuri’s brain is a tangle. He’s used to it.)

There’s this afternoon, though. In the middle of the summer, when the rain is falling in sheets and the building is just very lightly trembling with thunder. They’re sprawled across the couch: Yuuri on top of Victor, rising and falling with his breaths. Victor’s fingers trace up and down his back so gently and so carefully all the hairs on Yuuri’s arms stand up.

Yuuri has memorized the sensations of anxiety, of adrenaline valves clicking open and ribs tightening. Calm has a physical sensation, too, like a knot being untied.

When he doesn’t second-guess this - when all he wants is to hold as still as he can so this doesn’t slip away a second before it’s ready - it shakes him. (But he doesn’t overthink it.)


	16. the summer of mutual pining: Yuuri and Makkachin

**kevystel asked:**

**for the summer of mutual pining: what do you think of the numerous times viktor watched yuuri cuddle makkachin and was seized with the almost violent urge to wrap himself around them both  
**

Since the day Victor learned Yuuri lost a poodle recently, he resolves to be strong when it comes to Yuuri and Makkachin. Which is not always easy. For one, Makkachin insists on spending every other night with Yuuri in his twin bed, when really they should _both_ be in Victor’s bigger and vastly more comfortable California King.   
  
But Victor’s been here for weeks now. He knows that things are going to be different than he imagined. (Not _bad_ different. But surprising, nonetheless.) And Yuuri needs Makkachin. The hope is that he might one day need Victor, too, but when you have trouble asking things of people, it’s much easier to ask things of a cute dog.   
  
And then Victor’s resolve was tested so many times.

\- Yuuri _lights up_ when he Japanese-babytalks at Makkachin. His voice skips like a laugh when it hits the double consonant of her name. Sometimes he sings entire sentences to her. When she begs at the table he croons, “Oh no, how could we, don’t we know that you have never had anything to eat in your entire life.”   
  
\- “She likes you,” Victor blurts out after practice one day, while Yuuri is playing with Makkachin’s ears.   
  
“She’s a good girl.” Yuuri scratches the sides of her face . She kicks her back leg and makes her gleeful little snuffling noises.  
  
“She doesn’t take to many people like this,” Victor says. At Yuuri’s level, intently-listening look, he adds, “Though I don’t trust many people with her, either.”  
  
“Oh,” Yuuri says. His cheeks look pink. “I hope I can be worthy of your trust.”  
  
Victor doesn’t tell Yuuri that he’s trusted him with this since the banquet at Sochi, where Yuuri’s last intelligible words were ‘do you think dogs know that I love them.’  
  
\- When Yuuri tries to treat his blisters himself, Makkachin whines and barks and licks his face. When Victor treats Yuuri’s blisters for him, Makkachin lies with her head on Yuuri’s thigh and looks satisfied.   
  
“Let me take care of that,” Victor says about anything that looks even mildly painful. “You’ll worry Makkachin.”  
  
“… well,” Yuuri will say, unfolding his legs to give Victor access to his feet. “We wouldn’t want that.”  
  
\- The most excruciating test comes after a particularly grueling practice, when Yuuri crawls across the tatami to Makkachin and falls asleep on her.  
  
(The still-functioning parts of Victor’s brain wonder how Yuuri can stand all that fur in his face when it’s so hot, but most of his thoughts have devolved into a lengthy screech.)  
  
Yuuri’s glasses are askew and his cheek is smushed against Makkachin’s belly, but somehow he looks so comfortable. Victor wants to lie behind him and press his face into his shoulder blade. Or lie on Makkachin’s other side and reach over her and entwine his fingers with Yuuri. Or selfishly slide between them and bury his face under Yuuri’s t-shirt and let Makkachin nuzzle at his back.  
  
All of those things. Any of them. He wants to be everywhere at once, not standing here across the room while his own dog gazes at him over his sleeping student with the faintest hint of judgment.  
  
He could probably do it. He could probably say ‘you just looked so comfortable, I couldn’t resist!’ It’s the kind of foreigner-without-boundaries act he’s very good at. Except Yuuri saw through that act weeks ago.  
  
“Don’t they look cozy, Vicchan,” Hiroko says when she comes to wake Yuuri for dinner. “Makes you want to join them, doesn’t it?”  
  
She doesn’t know what he’s thinking, of course. (She doesn’t, does she?) Victor still has to stop and take a breath before he answers.


End file.
